© RAE | São Paulo | V. 56 | n. 3 | maio-jun 2016 ISSN 0034-7590
RAE| Revista de Administração de Empresas | FGV/EAESP 265
EDITORIAL
ONCE AGAIN, THE QUESTION OF PLACE: LOCAL, GLOBAL, OR GLOCAL?
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-759020160301B
razilian journals are currently facing a number of dilemmas: publishing topics of local interest versus producing knowledge for a universal science, pressure to publish in English versusproducing research (and articles) in the local language, and attracting articles by talented Brazilian researchers who, under pressure from their institutions, prefer to publish in international journals.
The goal of any academic journal is to disseminate the pro-duction of knowledge and, depending on the quality of that knowled-ge, increase its own visibility. However, academic journals cannot be held responsible for all the aforementioned problems, which are the re-sult of a number of complex factors. These may include, for example, the relationship between graduate programs and the agencies that re-gulate quality assessment metrics, and the complicated relationships that exist between diferent social actors, such as professors, studen-ts, editors, program coordinators and academic congresses. The acade-mic community specializing in Business Administration needs to be in constant dialogue in order to respond to the need for scientiic rigor and good research practices, to satisfy local interests and to produce uni-versal knowledge that beneits society as a whole. Indeed, as we know, reality is socially constructed and the system is the product of all the stakeholders who sustain it. Management is a component of Applied Social Sciences and, as such, it should necessarily contribute to an im-provement in people’s living standards, a point always worth remembe-ring. An article is one of the possible outcomes of any research project, and, for an article to reach the publication stage, several steps, invol-ving numerous actors may be necessary.
In addition to debates within the graduate programs, other ini-tiatives could help reinforce these steps: academic congresses, for example, could provide workshops to foster writing and publishing com-petences among Masters’ and Ph.D. students, and stress to the new ge-nerations that they need to adopt scientiic rigor and ensure that their research is relevant to the country. At the same time, academic jour-nals could further encourage Brazilian authors to contribute creative so-lutions to local problems, as well as stimulate the use of forums that encourage collaboration between Brazilian and foreign researchers. Fi-nally, such journals should carry out meaningful revisions in order to improve the quality of their articles, and at the same time invite senior research professors to contribute with their relections to diferent aca-demic debates.
Coincidentally, two articles in this present issue contribute to the debate on these questions, but from diferent perspectives. Ola-varrieta evaluates the quality of Latin American academic journals and shows that, among other criteria, publishing works that are relevant, with sophisticated methodologies and which discuss trends is still the best alternative for academic journals, instead of twisting and turning to try to increase the impact factor. Another conclusion of the article is that journals with an English title tend to attract greater attention. The brand of the publishing institution is also a relevant factor. The author recom-mends that editors increase their journals’ perceived quality by means of a set of actions that include real beneits for authors, such as time of reply, and, particularly, the quality of article reviews. There is no doubt that these recommendations are pertinent to our local academia. Howe-ver, the question of the language used is not a trivial one: our “mongrel complex”, the taste for foreign things, non-creative reproduction, and lack of appreciation of national references have been highlighted for de-cades by a number of Brazilian researchers, including Machado-Da-Sil-va, Cunha and Amboni (1990), Bertero, Caldas and Wood Jr. (1999),
Ro-drigues and Carrieri (2001), Vergara and Pinto (2001), among others. We need to “decolonize the mind” and, at the same time, contribute to bui-lding universal knowledge. It is true that the articles in this issue are in English and Spanish, but this is not the key question. Renowned poets have had their poems translated from Polish, Portuguese and Russian into diferent languages, signifying that they have something important to say. We can publish in Portuguese, Spanish or English, but the essen-tial thing is for us to be able to contribute to the production of knowle-dge in such a way that is relevant both locally and globally. This is the subject of the relections of Letícia Moreira Casotti and Maribel Carva-lho Suarez, in the area of consumer culture theory. Their debate extends beyond this speciic ield, however, and asks the questions: how can one encourage Master’s students in Administration to read conceptual articles? How can one stress the importance of theoretical abstractions to the understanding of social reality? Using examples of consumer cul-ture theory, Casotti and Suarez discuss how one can achieve universal recognition by speaking about one’s own village.
Along the same lines, the other articles in this issue deal with subjects that are important to our local reality: Renê Birochi and Marlei Pozzebon, in Improving Financial Inclusion: Towards a Critical Education Framework, based on a study in the Brazilian Amazon, propose ways through which IT-based inancial education can have an impact on low--income entrepreneurs and lead to social emancipation. The article by Thadeu Gasparetto and Angel Bajaras deals with the economics of sport based on a comparative study of soccer championships. Antonio Bene-dito de Oliveira Jr., Felipe Mendes Borini, Roberto Carlos Bernardes and Mauro José de Oliveira surveyed 101 Brazilian companies, and argue that entrepreneurial orientation and strategic alliances should be used to improve company performance, particularly regarding small and me-dium-sized enterprises. In these studies, the authors begin with local experiences, but then move on, proposing models that exceed the em-pirical description. Finally, the study by Eduardo Acuña and Matias San-fuentes looks at a classic but always relevant topic, namely the question of organizational identity.
This issue concludes with a review of John Hartley, Jason Pot-ts and Suart Cunnigham’s book, Key Concepts in Creative Industry, and with a recommended bibliography on executive compensation and en-trepreneurship in the creative industries
Pleasant reading!
MARIA JOSÉ TONELLI | Editor-in-Chief Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo – São Paulo – SP, Brazil
REFERENCES
Bertero, C. O., Caldas, M. P., & Wood Jr., T., (1999). Produção cientíica em administração de empresas: Provocações, insinuações e contribuições para um debate local. Revista de Administração Contemporânea, 3(1), 147-178.
Machado-Da-Silva, C. L., Cunha, V. C., & Amboni, N. (1990). Organizações: O estado da arte da produção acadêmica no Brasil. Encontro da Associação Nacional dos Programas de Pós-graduação em Administração, Florianópolis, SC.
Rodrigues, S. B., & Carrieri, A. D. P. (2001). A tradição anglo-saxônica nos estudos organizacionais brasileiros. Revista de Administração Contemporânea, 5(SPE), 81-102. Vergara, S. C., & Pinto, M. C. S. (2001). Referências teóricas em análise organizacional: Um
